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of the other dying. There was an icy hailstorm the day before the races, and we lay in bed and ordered pizza. Danny sent Ryan down to Salt Lake City for donuts and fast food and DVDS and all we did was laugh that day.
    I’d taken first in downhill and GS—Ryan had swept all of the events and Danny came second in all but downhill, which he crashed out of.
    We’d stayed in a different room than this one. But, it had the same navy and white bedspread, and comfortable wicker furniture.
    That third floor window overlooked the same mountains as my sixth floor window did now.
    Danny left his toothbrush in my bathroom and slept with me the night before the races. He kissed my nose, counted my freckles—22—and told me he loved me.
    I never thought to count all of the times he would say it. After the first time, it was just a chorus to a song that I thought would be playing for the rest of my life called Danny Keller Love You.
    Someone should have told me: Danny Keller dies. Way too young. Way too suddenly. In so much pain. And the song stops. You’ll never hear it again.
    Someone should have warned me that the danger you took when you fell in love was pain worse than anything you knew before you were in love. That when you let yourself need someone like that, it’s a bad addiction. And when you wake up without them, the withdrawal is its own kind of dying.
    Your heart beats differently, your eyes see differently, the world flattens out before you, until you know nothing again will ever be as good to you as he was. Nothing again will ever be so wrenching as his death. Nothing will ever feel past the scar tissue of these wounds.
    What have I gotten myself into? I wonder. I shake my head. Competing is going to bring back so many memories of Danny and Ryan.
    The knock on my door startles me out. “Come in,” I shout stupidly, before I walk over to it to open it.
    “FUCK YEAH YOU’RE HERE!”
    Five feet three inches and 105 pounds barrel into me, knocking me off of my feet.
    “I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE BACK OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER.”
    “Lottie?”
    “Obviously. Expecting someone else? Oh my god! Welcome back!”
    I hug her warmly, getting to my feet. “How have you been? Congrats on Nationals by the way, I meant to call…”
    “Don’t be stupid. You’ve been through hell. I didn’t expect a phone call,” She flounces through my room and sit down on the bed, lying back into the sea of pillows. “So, are you really competing this weekend?”
    “Yeah, that’s the plan.” I bite my lip. “Should be pretty embarrassing.” I scratch the back of my head.
    She nods. “You’ll do great. You just have to make it into the final round. It’s a pretty small race…”
    “It’s been a year and a half…”
    She looks at me. “Never knew Pippa Baker would get inside her own head.”
    “Yeah, well, like you said, I’ve been through hell.”
    “You’re going to finish in the top three,” Lottie says simply. “End of story.”
    “I wish I had your confidence.”
    Lottie rolls her eyes. “So…what’s new with you?”
    “Not much. I just finished up midterms.”
    “No way—where about?”
    “Boulder.”
    “Nice. College. Wow.”
    “Right? Who’d have guessed I would end up wanting to go to college?” I wonder aloud. I certainly never foresaw it.
    “So, you ski around Eldora?” Eldora is a mountain thirty minutes from Boulder—nothing fancy, but serviceable. Boulder students use it for weekend trips, but obviously I haven’t used it all.
    “No.”
    She nods. “Vail?”
    “I haven’t been on a mountain since the avalanche.”
    “At all?”
    I nod.
    “Fuck, Pippa,” the disbelief in her voice makes a shiver run down my spine.
    “I’m totally screwed.”
    “No, I just mean— fuck ,” she breathes in deeply. “Why not?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?”
    She shakes her head. “You’re scared? I don’t—I mean, I’m sure things have changed, but I just. I never could imagine you without